


you gave me something to miss

by meathermac



Series: live a life from a new perspective [3]
Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, also my brain: SOFT BEVERLIN NOW, band au, my brain: you have schoolwork, once again i am writing band au fic because it's a good au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26018044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meathermac/pseuds/meathermac
Summary: Maybe some people fall in love all at once and maybe some people know it immediately; maybe it takes sixteen years and a flowering plant for you to realize that you might be in love with your best friend.
Relationships: Erlin Kindleaf/Beverly Toegold V
Series: live a life from a new perspective [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888468
Comments: 8
Kudos: 58





	you gave me something to miss

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAa
> 
> as always massive shoutout to the naddcord and especially sam/blazeofglory for both beta'ing and providing most of the lore for this fic from her fantastic band au!!!!
> 
> love you all, hope you enjoy!!

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” 

Beverly flops back down onto the shitty couch, earning himself a glare from Moonshine as she walks out of the room that he assumes is more about the bed than it is about him, and says, “When can you come and visit?” 

“I dunno, Bev,” Erlin responds, distracted, “I have a lot of stuff to do for classes this week, and I don’t have anyone that can take care of my plants.” 

“Can’t Egwene?” he asks, playing absentmindedly with the edge of his sheets. “She mentioned being in town.” 

He hears his boyfriend sigh on the other end of the line, then the familiar creak of the windows opening. “I mean, yeah, I can ask her. Any chance you can make it down here? I think Egwene and Nana would love to see you again.”

“I might be able to!” Beverly pulls the phone away from his ear and yells, “Hey Moonshine! Hardwon!” 

“Hardwon’s at Mav’s house, what do ya need?” she yells back from the kitchen. 

“Do we have a gig this weekend?” 

There’s a pause before she calls, “Nah, ‘cause Mav has somethin’ and he said he needed the weekend free!”

He laughs. “I call bullshit.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure he’s got a totally valid reason that has nothin’ to do with Hardwon sleepin’ over. You can go visit the love a’ your life if ya want to.”

“Shut up,” Beverly mumbles, picking his phone back up and saying, “Moonshine says that we don’t have anything to do this weekend, so I can probably come down and see you!” 

“Oh, great!” Erlin says although the enthusiasm doesn’t seem to reach his voice. “Yeah. I, uh, I’ll see you then. I miss you, dude.” 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too, babe.” 

Bev sets down his phone, then picks it back up, then sets it down again. “Moonshine?” 

She walks into the living room, bowl and mixing spoon in hand, and leans against the archway leading into the kitchen. “You’re worried about whether or not he secretly hates you?” 

“Is that such a strange thought to have?” he mutters. “I wouldn’t blame him if he did hate me.” 

Honestly, Beverly couldn’t blame Erlin for anything. 

Long-distance never works, everyone says. And everyone thinks they’re the couple that can make it through. It’s so  _ easy _ when you’re barely 18 years old and you’re in love--at least, what you think love might be like--to tell yourselves that you’re the one couple who can make it work.

Maybe they aren’t supposed to make it through a long-distance relationship. Maybe that’s not in the cards for Beverly and Erlin. But he lived through what his life would be like if he wasn’t dating Erlin, and Bev never, as long as he lives, wants to go through that again.

It’s the fear that you’re going to lose each other completely and it’s the texting with your ex-boyfriend’s sister about song lyrics and diminished sevenths and listening to her tell you that  _ he misses you, you know he misses you, _ and it’s the loneliness that somehow feels all-consuming even though you live with your best friends. 

So maybe Erlin does hate him after all, and maybe Beverly’s just too hopeful to see it. 

“Youngin’, that boy loves you,” Moonshine says, setting her mixing bowl down and sitting across from him on the couch. “How long have I known you, exactly? Two or so years?”

“Two years, yeah.” 

She nods, drumming her fingers on the table. “I met you when you and Erlin were still datin’. And you two always seemed so sweet on each other; you were the saddest damn thing I’d ever seen when he broke up with ya.”

“Moonshine,” he protests weakly, but she just shakes her head and keeps going. 

“I didn’t wanna get in the way of a relationship that I didn’t know anything ‘bout, but I watched one a’ my best friends get his heart broken by someone he was in love with.” Moonshine crosses her legs, tilts her head to the side, and says softly, “I watched ya try and date other people and I watched ya come home cryin’ almost every other night and then turn around and tell Hardwon and I that you were just fine.” 

“Long-distance is hard,” Beverly mumbles, clutching his knees to his chest. “I don’t wanna lose Erlin again and I don’t want him to hate me.” 

She laughs. “Oh gosh, Bev, that boy worships the ground you walk on. I know you and I know him, and I know that the year or so y’all weren’t datin’ hurt him near as much as it hurt you.”

“But what if--” 

“Oh, knock it off with the ‘what if’s, youngin’.” Moonshine clicks her tongue, shaking her head. “Your boy loves you as much as you love him and it’s sickenin’ to watch, but if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

He sighs, relaxing a little bit. “Thanks, Moonshine.” 

She reaches over and tussles his hair, grinning. “No problem. Love ya, Bev.”

“Love you too.” 

*

The rest of the week passes by slower than any other length of time in Beverly’s life; all of his classes drag on for hours and even band practice on Friday feels like it takes a week and a half to get over with.

As soon as Mavrus calls it a wrap, Beverly shoves his keyboard into its case and hands it off to Moonshine, grabbing the bag he’d packed beforehand so he could leave as soon as practice was over. He’s nearly out the door when Mavrus calls, “Hey, where are you headed, Bev? We just finished!”

“I’m going home for the weekend,” he says, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Do you need anything?” 

“Nah, I was just curious.” Mavrus puts his arm around Hardwon, who blushes as he fiddles with the drum kit. “Are you going to see your boyfriend?” 

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m just going down to see Erlin. Can I go now?” he asks bluntly. “Sorry, Mav. I just want to get going.” 

He waves him off. “I’ll see you later, Beverly. Have fun. Use protection.” 

“Go to hell!” he yells as he walks away, and he can hear Mavrus laughing faintly as he leaves. 

Beverly tosses his backpack into the passenger seat of his shitty car and sighs, slumping down in the seat. His hometown is only two hours away from where he lives now, but it’s so different to be back there now. 

He misses his mom (and his dad, kinda) and his friends that he used to go camping with, and he even misses the subway system that he had memorized the schedule for and the gardens in the city center where he and Erlin first kissed, and it’s strange to go back to his hometown now because it feels like everything’s the same and everything’s different at the same time.

The city he lived in was never a bad place for him to be, it just didn’t feel like the right place for him to spend the rest of his life. He moved away, met Moonshine and Hardwon, and decided that he didn’t really wanna go back. 

As Beverly reaches the city limits, he notices that the buildings are a little bit different, different signs, new paint colors, and the like. He just sighs and keeps driving.

It wasn’t like he moved away and suddenly changed his entire personality and worldview, and it’s not like everyone he’d grown up with shunned him. He’s known he was gay since he was younger and he learned that boys like boys; he’d known he was in love with Erlin even before he had the right words for it. 

So it’s not that his hometown isn’t right for him, it’s more like he’s not right for it. 

Despite the forlorn thoughts that cloud his brain when he reaches the city center, Beverly can’t keep a smile off his face as he pulls into the familiar parking lot of Erlin’s college. This place has always had good memories, whether it was visiting Erlin’s older sister Egwene when she still went here or church groups that toured the college (he still has a very vivid memory of sneaking off with his friends during one of those tours and playing hide n’ seek on the campus). 

Erlin is waiting outside his dorm hall, and Beverly nearly tackles him with a hug; they’re both smiling and laughing, and Beverly gives him a quick kiss on the cheek before saying, “Well, I’m sorry I’m late, I got caught up being teased by Mavrus. But I’m here now, so that’s good, right?” 

Bev can practically sense that Erlin is rolling his eyes at the mere mention of Mavrus, and his suspicions are immediately confirmed by Erlin responding with, “I still don’t like Mavrus.” 

“I know you don’t like Mavrus, babe, but he’s just kind of an asshole.” He grabs hold of Erlin’s hand and smiles at him. “He’s dating Hardwon now anyways.” 

Erlin laughs out loud at that, and he can’t help but giggle a little bit too--it is kind of a ridiculous pairing to think about. “Well, good for them, I guess. I am  _ so _ happy to see you, dude. I seriously missed you so much.” 

“I know, I missed you too. I swear I always forget how much prettier you are in person.”

He blushes, buries his face in the crook of Beverly’s neck, and mumbles, “Shut up.” 

“You’re pretty and you’re just going to have to accept that,” he says, kissing the top of his boyfriend’s head. 

“I hate you so much.” 

“Love you too.” 

Erlin mumbles something unintelligible into Beverly’s shirt and then says, “Do you wanna go into the city? I’d invite you upstairs, but also my room sucks and it’s mostly homework and plants.” 

“I love your plants!” he protests. “Is Beverly the cactus still alive?”

He smiles. “Yes, shockingly. The cactus has managed not to die for two years, which given your track record, means that the cactus has more common sense than my boyfriend.” 

“It was one time--”

“Bev, you broke both of your legs.”

Beverly rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath, “Unfair judging system because the cactus can’t break its legs so you have no idea if the cactus would have done it if it could have.” 

“I love you more than the cactus, don’t worry.” 

He kisses Erlin, running his fingers through his boyfriend’s soft curls as he smiles slightly into the kiss. When they break apart, Beverly says, “I love you too. It still really sucks living away from you, but being able to see you on weekends is at least a small consolation.” 

“When the band’s rich and famous I’ll drop out of college and just go live with you. You can pay for all of my stuff.” 

Beverly laughs and takes Erlin’s hand again, leaning back against the wall. “If it means I get to see you every day, I’ll take that deal.” 

He laughs along with him softly, then says, “I love you so much.” 

“I love you too.” 

They’re silent for a moment, then Erlin tugs on Beverly’s hand and tilts his head in the direction of the city center. “Let’s go. I wanna show you something.” 

Turns out the thing Erlin wants to show him is the city center gardens, which Beverly laughs at because it’s the  _ gardens _ , he’s been there a hundred thousand times--it’s right next to the church that he used to go to and the ice cream shop him and his friends would always beg their parents to go to after church--and more importantly, it’s the place where they had their first kiss all those years ago. 

(They were sixteen and they were stupid but they were alone on a park bench in the middle of a garden, and Erlin was telling Bev about a nearby flower or  _ something _ and they weren’t even dating, just best friends, and he was listening to Erlin go on and on about this plant and all of a sudden he just asks, “Can I kiss you?”

Maybe some people fall in love all at once and maybe some people know it immediately; maybe it takes sixteen years and a flowering plant for you to realize that you might be in love with your best friend.)

It’s not like they’re that much more emotionally intelligent now, really, but as Erlin drags him over to a small corner of the gardens, at least Beverly knows that he’s in love and at least he knows Erlin loves him back. 

They stop at a corner near the back of the garden and Erlin kneels, pointing to a section towards the front with a few small plants and says, “These are my plants. I got permission--” he stops, laughing a little, “Well, Egwene got me permission to plant some of the flowers and stuff I was keeping in my dorm back here because then I could like, study them or whatever, but I just thought it was super cool because I used to come here all the time and now…” he trails off, looking at Beverly confusedly. “What’s wrong? Am I talking too fast? I’m sorry.”

“No, no, uh, keep talking,” he says, smiling. “I could listen to you for the rest of my life.” 

Here’s the thing, after all; he’s in love with this boy and maybe that’s it, maybe there’s no secret hatred behind all of the love, maybe there’s no song lyrics to be written about every time they touch, and maybe you don’t need to say ‘I love you’ out loud. 

Maybe ‘here’s the garden I planted, come look at it’ means ‘I love you’. Maybe ‘I miss you, can you come and see me soon?’ does too and so does ‘of course I’ll come and watch you guys play this weekend’ and maybe ‘I love you’ is just the translation of all the little things people say that mean  _ hey, I think I’m in love with you _ . 

And sometimes you don’t need to say everything out loud, so Beverly just sits down next to his boyfriend, leans his head on his shoulder, and listens to him talk about his plants with a smile on his face and he wonders how he could have  _ ever _ lived without this.

**Author's Note:**

> lichen, commerce, and scribble, or leave a comment or a kudos if you liked it!!!
> 
> hit me up on twitter [@maplekeenes] or tumblr [@maple-keenes] to scream about soft beverlin


End file.
